The Jaguar XKR-S may be a limited edition but this big cat needs more bite

I’ve been wary of taking advice ever since the Nineties, when the Government told us all to get annuity pensions.

It was a terrible idea and they said sorry, a bit late for everyone who lost their life savings. After that, property was the clever thing to buy, but if you bought a house in 2007 you’ll be regretting it now.

And as for stocks and shares, I never thought handing over my money for some ponce in the City to play with was a good idea. And now thank God I didn’t.

The only speculating I’ve ever done has been on cars. It’s not foolproof – American muscle cars boomed and then collapsed – but if you get it right you can double your money in a few years, while also driving in your investment every day.

To me, that’s unbeatable, but obviously you need money in the first place.

When Chris Evans recently bid on James Coburn’s Ferrari 250GT SWB California Spyder, the estimate was £3.5 million. He got it for £5.6 million. Worth it?

Well, you’d better ask him, but trust me, that’s reasonable as far as this market goes. The 250GTO that Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason bought in the Seventies for a few grand is now worth more than Wales. All right, £15 million, but that’s not a bad return is it?

All the real moneyspinners are from the Sixties or earlier, but if you were a real genius you’d work out which new cars are going to achieve legendary status and buy them fresh off the factory floor. That’s what happened in the last boom, in the late Eighties.

The demand for new Ferraris and Porsches so outstripped the supply that new cars would instantly increase in value. Daley Thompson bought two Porsche 959s and sold them a fortnight later, allegedly making £250,000 off some City boy with more money than sense.

Which brings me to Jaguar. They have always been a respectable outfit, but until the late Eighties they didn’t have a must-have, rare-as-hen’s-teeth supercar to drive the yuppies into a frenzy. Enter the XJ220.

Unveiled at the 1988 British Motor Show, it wasn’t just the fastest Jaguar ever, at 217mph it was the fastest production car in history (until the McLaren F1 came along), with a 6.2-litre V12 engine and Lamborghini-style scissor doors.

It looked gorgeous and they were only making a couple of hundred, so it seemed like a solid-gold investment.

All you had to do was part with a £50,000 deposit, with another £300,000 due on delivery, and it was yours.

Sadly, by the time the first XJ220 was delivered in 1992, they’d swapped the V12 for a V6, lost the scissor doors and, more importantly, the economy had collapsed.

Everyone wanted their deposit back but Jag said, nope – in fact, since you signed a contract we’ll have the other three hundred G, please. It was brilliant to watch, but probably not much fun if you were in it.

Even now, they’re only really worth £100,000. And all this was playing on my mind as I waited to take delivery of this Jaguar XKR-S, only 50 of which will be available in the UK.

Is this the right time to ask £80,000 for a limited-edition sports car?

I’m not saying it won’t be a good investment. Jags can give brilliant returns – although they tend to be C- and D-type racers from the Fifties.

It’s just that conditions today are even worse than 1992 and the fat cats have no bonuses to spend, boo-hoo. Shame, as it’s got a lot going for it. At 174mph, it’s the fastest Jag to go on sale since the XJ220.

And since that actually had rubbish brakes, a crashing ride and terrible visibility, it’s a great advert for 20 years of big-cat progress.

Just to be clear, this is a special edition of a special edition.

The XK is Jaguar’s current sports car. The XKR is the tuned version. The XKR-S is billed as ‘the ultimate XK’, with revised suspension, improved aerodynamics, uprated brakes and the 155mph speed-limiter removed, giving you an extra 19mph of bragging rights.

Scroll down for more

Left-to-right: Sat-nav on the piano-black console and front headlight unit

Left-to-right: XKR-S logo on the speedometer and push-button engine control

There are only 200 in the world, all painted Ultimate Black and wearing Pirelli P-Zero tyres on their 20in wheels, with an Active Exhaust that cruises quietly but gives a V8 roar under acceleration.

This is all good. I put about 1,000 miles on the clock before handing it back, and it is totally commanding on the motorways.

The supercharged V8 is a joy, especially if you use the sequential paddles to downshift before slamming your foot down. The Bowers & Wilkins sound system is seriously good, but I’m not convinced there’s that much difference from the XKR.

The extra nine grand you pay for this puts it in the same price bracket as the Aston Martin Vantage, and having recently tested that I’m afraid it’s not a good comparison.

The real problem comes when you get off the motorway and head for home on the country roads.

For such a fast car, it’s way too reluctant to slam into the bends and the auto box doesn’t keep up as you power through. I think they should have given it a proper manual gearstick, to really set it apart from the XKR.

As it is, I’d say it drives more like a muscle car than a sports car – full of power, but nowhere near as nimble as I was expecting. Maybe they’re saving that for the ‘new E-type’ I keep hearing rumours about, supposedly due in 2010.

Don’t get me wrong – this is still a good car. But if I’m honest, it feels a tiny bit like Jaguar are taking the mick.

They would easily have got away with it a year ago, when money was no object for competitive bosses.

Nowadays, though, the bosses have learnt to spend their money the way I do: carefully, and with a gun to my head.

DRIVE TALKINGWhat's hot on the road this week

LET THERE BE LIGHT Hyundai its now taking orders for its Genesis Coupe (below), having shown it off at all this year's motor shows. Selling from just £10,300 in Korea, the coupe is probably the most affordable rear-wheeldrive sports car in the world. With ESP, Brembo brakes and a limited-slip differential plus a choice of 2.0-litre (210bhp) or 3.8-litre (310bhp) V6 engines, the Genesis will only go on sale in the UK once it has passed EU safety tests - most likely at twice the price the Koreans are paying...

RETURN OF THE MAC At its launch in 1992, the 243mph McLaren F1 (below) was the fastest road car ever built, but also one of the most expensive at over £550,000. Now that McLaren is back making its own motors, it's time for another world-beater. Built with carbon-fibre technology from the company's F1 team, the rear-wheel drive McLaren P11 (below) will have a 6.2-litre V8 engine tuned by experts AMG to produce 500bhp, and should hit a top speed of 200mph. Not quite as fast as its forebear - but then it should be about a third of the price when it goes on sale in 2010.

GOLDEN OLDIES

You haven't truly seen a classic car until you've seen it polished to within an inch of its life under the lights of the Birmingham NEC. So get down to the 2008 Classic Motor Show, the biggest of its kind in the country, from November 14-16 (necclassicmotorshow.com). Over 1,000 cars will be there, from pre-1904 veteran machines to a very cool Mazda 110S Cosmo from the Sixties. Oh yes, and lots of Ford Escorts (it's the model's 40th birthday).